Generation Later, Poor Are Still Rare at Elite Colleges; New York Times, 8/25/14

Richard Perez-Pena, New York Times; Generation Later, Poor Are Still Rare at Elite Colleges: "A series of federal surveys of selective colleges found virtually no change from the 1990s to 2012 in enrollment of students who are less well off — less than 15 percent by some measures — even though there was a huge increase over that time in the number of such students going to college. Similar studies looking at a narrower range of top wealthy universities back those findings. With race-based affirmative action losing both judicial and public support, many have urged selective colleges to shift more focus to economic diversity."

Outdated forms leave same-sex couples confused; Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 8/16/14

Mackenzie Carpenter, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette; Outdated forms leave same-sex couples confused:

"Judge McGough has performed 59 same-sex weddings in Allegheny County since May 20, and while the couples uniformly praise the warm welcome they receive in the Marriage License Bureau, a few find the application form’s designation “unfortunate,’’ he said.

Other counties have not taken the same wait-and-see approach.

In Beaver County, money is tight and new forms weren’t in the cards, so “we just white out bride’ and ’groom’ and replace them with ’applicant,’ ” said Carol Fiorucci, the register of wills, While they wait for the new forms to arrive, “We want to be sensitive to the subject, and we want to be courteous,” she said.

“We had our software companies change our application forms the day after the law changed,” said Michael Ginsburg, register of wills for Westmoreland County, from bride and groom to “applicant.”

On the day a federal judge ruled the state’s ban on same-sex marriage was unconstitutional and the Corbett administration announced it would not appeal, couples started showing up in Mr. Ginsburg’s office for marriage licenses.

“We hadn’t had time yet to make the changes, and when they saw ‘bride’ and ‘groom’ on the forms, some of them were bothered by that,” Mr. Ginsburg said.

“A couple of them got excited, though and started arguing which one was the bride and which one was the groom.”

Late Friday, Holli Senior, a spokeswoman for the state Department of Health, emailed a statement that said since the ruling in May, the department “has been exploring options to determine what changes may be necessary to the state’s marriage application and other vital records forms. We will continue to work with all counties and ensure that they are provided with information as it becomes available.”

Web Trolls Winning as Incivility Increases; New York Times, 8/14/14

Farhad Manjoo, New York Times; Web Trolls Winning as Incivility Increases:

"But Dr. Phillips, of Humboldt State, pointed out that many efforts to curb trolling ran into a larger problem: “To what extent do you want to make it harder for people to express themselves on the Internet?” she asked.

“This is not the good-faith exchange of ideas,” she said. “It’s just people being nasty, and if anything, it might encourage marginalized groups to not speak up.” She added, “On the other hand, by silencing that valve, there’s a lot of other stuff that is important culturally that might also be minimized.”

If there’s one thing the history of the Internet has taught us, it’s that trolls will be difficult to contain because they really reflect base human society in all its ugliness. Trolls find a way.

“It’s not a question of whether or not we’re winning the war on trolling, but whether we’re winning the war on misogyny, or racism, and ableism and all this other stuff,” Dr. Phillips said. “Trolling is just a symptom of those bigger problems.”"

Tallying Female Workers Isn't Enough to Make Tech More Diverse; Atlantic, 8/11/14

Adrienne LaFrance, Atlantic; Tallying Female Workers Isn't Enough to Make Tech More Diverse:

"This drumbeat of diversity data has been anticlimactic, not least because it shows what most people already expected: that leaders in technology are overwhelmingly hiring white men. Often, when companies offered more granular detail, the gender divide was even more pronounced. Company-wide representation of women might be 30 percent, but the percentage of women in tech and engineering roles at Google and Yahoo, for instance, was about half that.

All the companies say they need to do more. Few are willing to talk about the issue beyond what they've released in charts and blog posts. Plenty of people say, or whisper to themselves, that individual companies can't fix the industry-wide "pipeline problem."...

If the industry cannot agree that there are obstacles to women entering the industry in the first place, it's no wonder the scope of the conversation is limited. Even those who fixate on diversity in tech often focus too narrowly on gender. "We'll talk about the fact that there's sexism in tech, but we won't talk about the fact that there's racism," said Tiffani Ashley Bell, CEO of scheduling app Pencil You In. "I feel like that's the safe conversation. And mostly white women are highlighted, and mostly white women are talking about the issue—and they're going to see it from that perspective."

Bell says that without a more open and inclusive conversation about diversity in tech, a few high-profile blog posts about workforce numbers isn't going to make a difference. "You can be well intentioned, but if you don't act on it—if you're not actually doing anything—change is not going to come about just from you wanting to be inclusive," Bell said. "It has to be something you're actively doing. If you want to be more inclusive there are ways to do it."

Sharing data is part of the solution, but it has to be linked with meaningful initiatives to change corporate practices. Companies should release annual reports detailing their progress and publicly assessing the workforce diversification strategies that have and haven't worked. That's the next step."

Many Women Leave Engineering, Blame The Work Culture; NPR, 8/12/14

Nicholas St. Fleur, NPR; Many Women Leave Engineering, Blame The Work Culture:

"Over the course of three years, , a psychologist at the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, surveyed 5,300 women who earned engineering degrees within the past six decades in order to figure out why so few stayed in engineering. Fouad reported that only 62 percent of respondents were currently working in engineering. Those who left the field provided their reasons for doing so in the survey.

The answer, Fouad said, was simple:

"It's the climate, stupid!" she said during her presentation, referring to the "old-boys club" workplaces that she says still exist in many engineering organizations.

Respondents in her study reflected her sentiments, with many calling the engineering workplace unfriendly and even hostile to women. They also said they felt that many of these companies did not provide opportunities for women like them to advance and develop.

"Women's departure from engineering is not just an issue of 'leaning in,' " said Fouad, lead researcher of the study. "It's about changing the work environment.""

Apple’s Diversity Mirrors Other Tech Companies'; New York Times, 8/12/14

Brian X. Chen, New York Times; Apple’s Diversity Mirrors Other Tech Companies’ :

"Similar to other Silicon Valley tech companies, Apple has a work force that is composed mostly of men, and most of them are white.

The company on Tuesday published statistics on the makeup of its work force of 98,000 employees in terms of race, ethnicity and sex. It said 30 percent of its employees worldwide were women. In the United States, where Apple is based, 55 percent of the employees are white, 15 percent are Asian, 11 percent are Hispanic and only 7 percent are black...

In an interview, Mr. Jackson said he was glad that Mr. Cook had chosen to reveal the report under his signature. He said the publication of diversity reports by Apple and the other tech companies was a step in the right direction. In the fall, he plans to hold a public forum, which will include the tech companies that have disclosed diversity data, to talk about a plan of action to help close the diversity gap.

“We think Silicon Valley is the fastest growing industry in America,” he said. “We must be forward-thinking and inclusive in ways we have not been before.”"